According to an article in New Scientist, materials that directly convert radiation into electricity could produce a new era of spacecraft and even Earth-based vehicles powered by high-powered nuclear batteries, say US researchers. . . .
The materials they are testing would extract up to 20 times more power from radioactive decay than thermoelectric materials, they calculate. . . .
Tests of layered tiles of carbon nanotubes packed with gold and surrounded by lithium hydride are under way. . . .
The tiles would be best used to create electricity using a radioactive material, says Liviu Popa-Simil, former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear engineer and founder of private research and development company LAVM , because they could be embedded directly where radiation is greatest. But they could also harvest power directly from a fission reactor's radiation.
Devices based on the material could be small enough to power anything from interplanetary probes to aircraft and land vehicles, he adds.